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Thursday, 20 April 2017

In a few centuries or perhaps a few decades, Artificial Intelligence (AI)
and biosynthetic engineering will be perfected to the degree that androids will
closely resemble humans and biosynthetically engineered humans will resemble
androids. Despite the nightmares of such a prospect for some scientists,
humanist scholars and theologians, AI will be a dream becoming reality for those
espousing Max More’s philosophy of “transuhumanism”; a movement whose goal is
to enhance the human condition physically and intellectually through the
application of scientific and technological means. (Carvalko, Joseph, The Techno-human Shell-A Jump in the
Evolutionary Gap. Sunbury Press, 2012)

Whether one agrees with transhumanism or finds it abhorrent because it
is merely another means of promoting eugenics, the race to transform
science fiction dreams into a profitable reality is picking up speed by
corporations and investors. Multinational corporations see the opportunity for
billions in profits and that is all the motivation they need to move forward
full speed, advertising AI research and development even now to prove that
their company is decades ahead of the competition.

Besides corporations, the potential power and wealth in AI has universities,
government-funded research institutions and privately-funded labs working to
realize the dream without worrying about the potential risks involved for
society at large. Like the nuclear bomb developed in the 1940s, the AI genie is
out of the bottle and it has been since the 1940s when scientists from
different fields contemplated building an artificial brain thus giving birth to
the formalize scientific discipline of AI in 1956.

British code breaker Alan Turing is known as the Father of Computer
Science, also a pioneer in the domain of artificial intelligence, was only at
the theoretical stage in the middle of the 20th century when he was
conducting research. Contemporaries of Turing, Ross Quillian and Edward
Feigenbaum followed by Marvin Minsky who co-founded MIT’s AI lab were all
pioneers along with corporate giant IBM. By 2016 when Minsky died, AI was the hottest
field that corporations, governments, and research institutions intensely
pursued, some trying to beat the competition marketing robots for various tasks
in the next few years. (George Zarkadakis, In our Own Image: Savior or Destroyer? The
History and Future of Artificial Intelligence, 2017).

GOOGLE’s Peter Norvik, in charge of research made the argument that
there is no turning back on AI which he views as the ultimate tool in solving
problems, not considering the new problems it would create. “I don’t care so
much whether what we are building is real intelligence. We know how to build
real intelligence…—my wife and I did it twice, although she did a lot more of
the work. We don’t need to duplicate humans. That’s why I focus on having tools
to help us rather than duplicate what we already know how to do. We want humans
and machines to partner and do something that they cannot do on their own.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/gilpress/2016/12/21/artificial-intelligence-pioneers-peter-norvig-google/#7dd2f52c38c6

In 2016, there were more
than 650 business deals involving $5 billion in startups for AI research. With
Google leading in patent applications, Microsoft, Amazon, INTEL, Facebook, and
Apple became heavily involved in the domain of AI. The same companies involved
in the web and cell phones are now competing for the lucrative AI market of the
future with different venture capitalists backing research and development (R
& D). With the advent of the web and cell phones, R & D in AI has moved
rapidly since Turing’s era into the mainstream of government in a number of
countries in the world, but especially US and China which are the main
competitors in the field. According to some, AI is the global arms race of the
future because of its potential in every sector including defense. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/02/china-artificial-intelligence/516615/;
http://www.nbcnews.com/mach/features/next-global-arms-race-aims-perfect-artificial-intelligence-n685911

Because of immense
institutional interest in AI, there has been a great deal written and debated
about what it would all mean for society. There are tens of thousands of
scholarly books and articles on the subject covering everything from scientific
dimensions to social political and philosophical, some enthusiastic, others
skeptical, and still others condemning AI as the new danger to humanity, even
worse than motion pictures and science fiction novels depict. While most
scholars are neither pessimistic nor as glowingly optimistic as Norvik about
the miracle of AI awaiting the human race, there are those who cautiously point
to both benefits and possible risks and skeptics cautious about the possible
unforeseen consequences, some already evident with the cybergeneration of
infophiles addicted to cell phones, computers, and video games.

In the early 21st
century, the cybergeneration growing up in cyberspace with mechanical toys,
videogames, cell phones and computers relate to machines as their reality.
Accepting cyberspace as parallel to experiences with people they come into
direct contact, the cybergeneration is conditioned to accept alienation from
empirical reality as the norm, separating existential reality they may dread
from cyber reality in which they live because they enjoy the illusion of
greater control from a distance. A cybergeneration individual may have dozens
or even hundreds of “cyber-friends” across the country and across the world but
few if any friends in school, in the neighborhood, or at work. These
cyubergeneration individuals deem detachment normal because the cyber-community
has replaced the empirical one where they cannot hide behind numerous masks
that cyberspace permits and promotes. The conditioning of the cybergeneration
is very different than the socialization of any generation in the past that was
socialized in the real community rather than in cyberspace. If this is the
condition of the current cybergeneration, what would the future look like with
AI robotics? http://cyberikee.tripod.com/thinking_cyber_subjectivity_1.html

By the end of this century,
the reality of children growing up with robots, holograms and bioengineered
humans will be far different than it is for the generation of the early 21st
century in every respect from individual to group identity. The wealthier
families will have androids in their homes, most likely helping to raise and
educate their children, conditioning them about the existential nature of
robots as an integral part of the family like the loveable dog or cat. The less
affluent middle class would be able to rent-a-robot for the ephemeral
experience of it. The lower classes will feel even more marginalized because AI
robotics will be out of reach for them; in fact they will be lesser beings than
the robots whose intelligence and functions will be another privilege for the
wealthy to enjoy. As we will see below, the sense of identity and community
will be largely impacted by AI in ways difficult to conceive today for all
classes.

AI, Population Explosion and the Job Market

Robotics and AI goes to the heart of how existing and new industries
could widen the class gap between rich and poor, and between richer advanced
countries and poorer nations. AI raises many public policy questions especially
in the domain of economics and politics. This is largely because resource
allocation will mean that the lower classes and less developed countries will
be further marginalized in the world economy. Even in the advanced countries
robots will be replacing humans in the workplace with grave social consequences
in the absence of a strict regulatory regime and a social safety net for the
working class.

If world population reaches 9 billion by 2050 as it is expected (38%
higher than in 2010), and assuming it climbs to 11.2 billion by the end of the
century with 9 billion living in Africa and Asia, it is easy to envision the
sorts of sociopolitical problems that AI will create in the name of
solving others, mainly for the benefit of raising corporate profits. Considering
that most people will live in the non-Western World, those in the West will use
AI as the pretext to keep wages low and exert their political, economic,
military and cultural hegemony. Xenophobic politicians and nativist groups will
use AI as a pretext to keep out Africans, Asians, and Latin Americans. Heightened
xenophobia with robots to the rescue of the Caucasian minority on the planet
will be another dimension of those looking for a pretext to rally rightwing
populists behind an authoritarian regime. http://www.visualcapitalist.com/animation-world-population-2100-region/

It is a given that AI will result in many benefits in every field from
surgery to the auto industry, and to an estimated 700 fields according to an
Oxford University study. Just as the internet has made possible the assistance
of a physician in Cleveland providing live instructions and advice to a
colleague carrying out surgery in the Philippines, similarly AI will result in
such miracles. The issue however is the manner that corporations and government
will use AI as leverage for labor policy. When the auto industry introduced
robotics in the 1970s (MIT’s “Silver Arm”), auto workers reacted like Luddites
in the early 19th century England because they realized that
corporations used robotics as leverage to drive down wages and benefits,
circumvent labor standards and policies impacting workers and their
socioeconomic condition. http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/The_Future_of_Employment.pdf

In our era, fast food restaurants are among some industries that want to
replace minimum wage workers with robots as soon as possible. Multinational
corporations have been threatening government not to raise the minimum wage
because robots are not far off replacing humans. Just as capitalists in early
19th century England were using the machine as leverage to determine
labor policy, so do corporate CEOs in the early 21st century. Just
as the British government sided with businesses against the Luddites in the era
of the Napoleonic Wars, governments in the 21st century are also on
the side of industry against workers.

From the perspective of the capitalist, an android can do a much better job
in everything from serving food, to serving on the court bench as a judge
without human prejudice which is the flaw that accounts human uniqueness. Although
some argue that robots should not be used as health care providers or any area
where human judgment of ethical considerations must be taken into account such
as the judicial system, others insist that androids will serve humans better
than people in every endeavor. As tools for human advancement and comfort,
science and technology are a welcome development from a consumerist perspective,
something that business and government use as an argument to fund R & D for
AI.

AI could unlock immense potential for economic growth and development
for the betterment of mankind, at least as far as its advocates are concerned.
This assumes that the benefits of AI once fully implemented will be equally
shared among all social classes across the entire world. Did all social classes
and all nations advance equally because of the Scientific Revolution of
the 17th century and the first Industrial Revolution in England in the
18th century? The rich-poor (northern Hemisphere vs. Southern Hemisphere) divide between northwest Europe, North America and Japan that were the core of the world capitalists system became more pronounced by continued scientific, technological, and
industrial development. Scientific, technological, and
industrial development under the capitalist system was hardly the solution for the
lack of social justice, for widespread misery owing to poverty and disease, and
lack of health and education among the poor. On the contrary, the advanced capitalist countries used technology as tools of exploitation of the Southern Hemisphere and AI technology will be no different.

Greater egalitarianism and the promise of creating a techno-scientific
paradise on earth is the bait that corporations and bourgeois politicians and
their apologists have been throwing to the masses for the past three centuries
and they continue to do it when it comes to the AI revolution. There are
studies warning about the greater gap between rich and poor people and
countries that robotics will cause. “Oxford University researchers have
estimated that 47 percent of U.S. jobs could be automated within the next two
decades. And if even half that number is closer to the mark, workers are in for
a rude awakening. In the 1800s, 80 percent of the U.S. labor force worked on
farms. Today it’s 2 percent. Obviously mechanization didn’t destroy the
economy. “

In Robot Nation, Stan Neilson raises the question of how a large
percentage of the population will survive when corporations replace humans with
robots on such a scale that half of the active work force will not be
employable. Is the future of the majority of the people to serve robots serving
the rich who own the robots? Will such conditions create the atmosphere for
social revolutions because AI will create greater polarization than we have
seen in modern history? After all, the contradiction of the AI revolution is
the promise to make life better for all when it is entirely possible that it
will make it much worse for the majority. While businesses and politicians are
constantly trying to convince people that the AI revolution is a panacea,
people will see for themselves that the benefits will accrue to the elites.
Will there be a rise of a Luddite movement against robots and will the elites
use robots to suppress revolutionary uprisings?

Advocates of AI insist that hyperbolic issues depicted in science
fiction motion pictures and books have nothing to do with the practical reality
of AI. The proponents of this new revolution believe that many new
opportunities will be created by the new industry and robots will complement humans
rather than humans competing with robots for jobs. The challenge for large
corporations is to have the engineers to keep pace with the job demand.
American companies have complained that government must do something to meet
the demand shortage that forces corporations to recruit from India, China,
Iran, Russia and other countries. India and China graduates 10 to 20 times more
engineers (depending on the source) than the US where the field is not popular
with students. On November 30, 2016, the computer sciences dean Andrew Moore
testified before the congressional Subcommittee on Space, Science and
Transportation that the US must have one million High School students now
geared for engineering to maintain global competitiveness in AI.https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2016/november/moore-senate-testimony.html

The engineering glut in Asia, India, China and Japan also points to the
race for AI that is seen as another tool giving the competitive advantage to
whichever country crosses the finish line first with far reaching implications
for the economy. Considering that about half of US engineering graduates (54% Ph.D. and 42% MS) are foreign nationals,
corporations have been asking government in the past ten years to provide more
incentives, everything from scholarships to R & D grants to universities
graduating engineers. Because of the enormous potential to the economy and
defense sector, AI has become an important element in international competition,
leaving no room to question the nuances of corporate welfare for the AI
industry and about what it would mean to the active workforce of the future.

Transhumanism and Identity

Resting on the works of “transhumanist” intellectuals,
the corporate, political and business advocates of AI believe the evolution of
culture and identity is inevitable with the advent of robotics. Welcoming
tranhumanism, the advocates believe that human beings have always evolved under
very different conditions throughout human history, and they will continue to
evolve physically and mentally thanks to the advancements in science and
technology. While Max More’s definition of transhumanism cited below touches on some
risks of AI, it stresses the benefits and it is the kind of justification that AI
investors, government and industry is seeking.

The intellectual and
cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of
fundamentally improving the human condition through applied reason,
especially by developing and making widely available technologies to
eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and
psychological capacities.

The study of the
ramifications, promises, and potential dangers of technologies that will
enable us to overcome fundamental human limitations, and the related study
of the ethical matters involved in developing and using such technologies. http://whatistranshumanism.org/; Max More and Natasha Vita-More, The Transhumanist Reader, 2013)

Ever since British geneticist
J. B. S. Haldane’s essay “Daedalus:
Science and the Future” (1923), scientists advocating transhumanism have
flirted with the idea of eugenics made possible by advances in science and
technology. The idea of humans existing in a mechanical environment and
approximating an android could be an anathema to a theologian or a humanist.
For transhumanists, this is neither blasphemy nor perversion of the human condition;
only its improvement. http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2013/03/data-driven-eugenics-genetic.html

Cyberculture that has created virtual communities raises philosophical
questions about identity, relationships, values, the withering of real
community culture, and lifestyles that will largely be determined by the AI
industry. Robot companions and infophiles are oblivious to the unknown risks
that AI could pose on society, arguing that a generation or two ago skeptics of
the internet had similar questions. There are those who maintain that cyberculture
is egalitarian and within it there is a counterculture movement validating its
democratic nature and endless possibilities for individual and cyber-identity.

Others warn that there is also a criminal and “hate group” culture
operating in everything from promoting narcotics to human slavery, from
neo-Nazi elements to nihilistic cults promoting suicide, all of which could
potentially become much worse with AI technology. “Social
engineering, which refers to the practice of manipulating people into
performing actions or divulging information, is widely seen as the weakest link
in the computer security chain. Cybercriminals already exploit the best
qualities in humans — trust and willingness to help others — to steal and spy.
The ability to create artificial intelligence avatars that can fool people
online will only make the problem worse.” https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/24/technology/artificial-intelligence-evolves-with-its-criminal-potential.html?_r=0

To apologists, cyberculture is not confined to the perimeters of the
hegemonic culture of the elites simply because Silicon Valley is an integral
part of corporate America. To skeptics, it has yet to be determined what role
AI will play in shaping human and group identity if robotics is the domain of the business and political class. After all, large corporations and governments
have a dominant role in cyberculture because they control cyberspace. Although
we have no way of determining how AI will shape human identity, we do know
something about the web’s influence in that regard.

In 2012, the British government commissioned a study directed by
Professor Sir John Beddington on the manner the web was redefining human
identity. Concluding that traditional identity based on community was becoming
less relevant by web users, the study noted that there were both positive and
negative influences resulting from the web community and users’ sense of
identity. A segment of the population identifying with a particular sporting or
cultural event could be mobilized through the web because individuals
identified with that specific cause. At the same time, thousands of people
could be called into political action as was the case not just with the Arab
Spring uprisings, but also Occupy Wall Street and European protests. “The internet can allow many people to
realise their identities more fully. Some people who have been shy or lonely or
feel less attractive discover they can socialise more successfully and express
themselves more freely online".http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-21084945

According to the British report on web identity, there was a sharp rise
of internet users becoming members of social networks in the first two decades
of the 21st century, along with the prevalence of social
networks that accounted for changing identity of users. This is especially in the
advanced capitalist countries, but the trend has spread rapidly to India, China
and other parts of the world. Given the prevalence of social networks and the
web, what will AI mean to human beings and their sense of identity and
community once perfected to be almost indistinguishable from humans? If Fidel Castro and Ernesto "Che" Guevara used RADIO REBELDE effectively to undertake the Cuban Revolution in the 1950s, will future generations use AI robots for social change,for personal satisfaction, for both and much more?

Infophiles are already becoming more like the machines they use, like
surreal characters in a Franz Kafka novel or a science fiction motion picture.
They crave virtual reality more than empirical reality; their relationship with
their cell phones or computers outlasts any other they have with human beings.
If we accept the assumption that environment shapes human nature to a large
degree as empiricist philosophers ever since John Locke argued, then we must accept
that a techno-science environment of AI robots used by bio-engineered humans
will result in robo-humans and a world where transhumanism will be the norm.

Eager to have robots behave like the ideal human, scientists are trying
to create the machine that can emulate human beings when in fact the infophile has
evolved into a quasi-robotic existence. The robot can be programmed to mimic
human behavior, but humans are already programmed by institutions to mimic
robots. Obedience is what businesses want from employees and consumers, what
government expects from its docile citizenry, what religious institutions
expect of the faithful. Just as robots are subject to conformity lacking free
will, similarly the masses have moved in that direction as well. It often seems as though
society has moved closer to the science fiction world of Fritz Lang’s METROPOLIS, but it is all in the name of 'progress'. Given the mechanical
evolution of where capitalism is leading humanity, why should it be surprising
that rich people who could afford the robot would have a problem with it as a
lover or companion; after all it would be in the name of 'progress' and who wants to be left behind?

Future generations growing up in the world of AI will be conditioned
into virtual reality as “more real” than the blood running in their veins,
rejecting the real community which they cannot switch off and on like cell
phones. It could be argued that the generation conditioned in infophilia has an
identity not much different than our ancestors in the Age of Faith (500-1500
A.D.) who lived with the dream of achieving eternal life in Paradise. Nevertheless,
the infophilia generation would be condemned to increasing alienation from the
real community. As long as AI human-like robots and techno devices keep people
content, at least for those with the means to afford them, humans will be
aiming at techno-perfection.

To be human entails a myriad of contradictions, rational and irrational
tendencies; instinctive spontaneous reaction and carefully planned; expressing
free will and yearning for spiritual and emotional ventures; striving for self-improvement in every aspect of one's character, and above all the
limitless boundaries of creativity rooted in the totality of life’s empirical experiences.
The robot does not have these traits and is defined by programmed behavior, or
operating within certain confines even when perfected at some point in the
future to account for emotional reactions and creativity. Nor does the robot
have the biological sense of empathy for humans even if programmed not to harm
them. This makes a robot as much the perfect soldier and police officer as it
does the perfect worker to obey. In short, through robotics, corporations are
designing the perfect soldier and worker and one that would be a model for
humans to emulate.

Erich Fromm’s theory of social necrophilia helps to explain human
behavior increasingly emulating technical devices, not merely as a byproduct of
science and technology, but of sociopolitical conditioning in a world where
human values are measured by inanimate objects. There is a case to be made that
identity with the machine and emulating it leads to a necroculture distorting
human values where inanimate objects have greater worth than human beings –
materialism in a capitalist society over humanism of an anthropocentric
society is the norm. (Charles Thorpe, Necroculture, 2016)

While force, social and legal/criminal justice pressures, along with
religious institutions kept people docile and compliant in centuries past
across the globe, it could be argued that science and technology are
substitutes to religion as the new conduits to keep human beings in a state of
conformity. Existential alienation that Jean-Paul Sartre addressed in Being
and Nothingness is vastly exacerbated by the cyber-world in which we
live. We are wired to alienation by the dominant market-oriented culture,
whereas the French peasant in the 12th century was presumably content
in the illusion of connectedness to the divine and hope for eternal Paradise.
Either our cyber-illusions could be as fulfilling as those of our ancestors
1000 years ago, or we are merely more delusional about a false sense of hope in
our cyber-controlled lives.

Beyond threatening human identity, artificial intelligence and
biogenetic engineering intentionally and inadvertently will reduce even the elites into
robots, affording them the illusion that because they have the means to buy the
latest science and technology has to offer so they could manipulate their
identity that entails control instead of subjugation to the machine. Human beings especially
the wealthier ones treasure uniqueness money can buy. But instead of turning inward to develop their creative potential and build positive character traits, they turn
outward to science and technology to achieve what they believe will afford them satisfaction. If the ancient Greeks created
a pantheon of anthropomorphic deities to reflect the superego as well as the
realization of their limitations, why shouldn’t our generation create
anthropomorphic robots even if many people feel threatened by them in this embryonic
phase of androids walking down the street next to humans and difficult to
distinguish? Gods and heroes are a timeless human illusion and the AI industry
is willing to oblige for a price.

AI Alienation and Sex-bots

Addictive behavior – drugs, drinking, gambling, etc. may become worse
with the AI technology becoming more prevalent because of greater alienation
from the real community and retreat into a cyberculture. Although narcotics use
in the US has been an integral part of society since the Nixon administration
created the war on drugs to punish blacks and the anti-war left, in our
cyberspace era there is some correlation between the necroculture of which
cyberculture has become an integral part and widespread use of drugs in the
secular West. The culture of materialism and hedonism are certainly
considerations as is marginalization and alienation of a segment of the
cyberspace community. Will AI make people able to cope with alienation without
resorting to narcotics and/or prescription pain killers, or will they become
even more addicted because of alienation? (Fred Turner, From Counterculture to Cyberculture. 2006)

The population of the US is 4.34% of the world’s, but consumes 80% of
the world’s opioids. The US also has the top spot in the use of a number of
other narcotics, including cocaine and marijuana with heroin addiction
infecting all communities in the nation. It hardly comes as a surprise to most people
in the age of cyberspace that human beings in much of the world are
increasingly more alienated despite of the means of communications available.
Symptomatic of the Industrial Revolution and rise of urbanization, alienation
is hardly the result of computers and cell phones. The sense of community once
enjoyed in the village, small town neighborhood, small social environments
where people enjoyed personal interactions as in the place of worship have been
replaced by cyberspace and they are about to become even more remote with the
advent of robotic and artificial intelligence.

However, there are companies lining up to manufacture and market such
robots, some which exist today even if in a crude form for the mass market. “Rent-a-robot”
for a few hours, days or weeks when you go on that dreamy vacation to exotic
islands and robo-love seems to be the acceptable trend. If need be, your hotel
could make a sex robot available for you, or you can pick one up at the airport
at the same location of the self-driving car rent-a-center. The sort of
uninhibited sex without boundaries that science fiction films like Westworld depicted will become a reality
and the lines between human and android could become as blurred as in the film Blade Runner. This eventuality will mean
that teenagers could be experimenting with robots and viewing sex with the
machine as normal thus encountering difficulty with humans that have emotions,
thoughts, and free will that does not respond to commands.

A segment of the male population could be opting for a Stepford Wives type of relationship with
a female, and for those who are into alternative sex lifestyles could be enjoying
the freedom of relationships with a machine without any pressures or
limitations that human impose. Everything from objectification of the sex
partner to taboo sexual practices will be made much easier with robots that
will change how humans view sex, emotional, and intimate relationships with
other people. (Jason Lee, Sex Robots: The Future of Desire,
2017)

Therapists could be using androids to help individuals with
psychological problems ranging from fear of intimacy to pedophilia and misogyny.
At the same time, there is the potential that robots will be the facilitators
for psychopaths to express their distorted desires that include everything from
abuse to murder. The Pandora’s Box of sex robots has already been opened by
many companies around the world. Nevertheless, it is still in its very early
stage when very little is known about what emerges. Researchers are not in the
position of determining what will emerge until it actually does by examining a
large sample of cases.

At this stage, there is interest on the part of companies making crude
versions of sex robots to capture the global market craving inanimate objects
that are as close to human as AI permits for the relatively low price of a
moderately priced car. It would hardly be surprising ifLas Vegas style AI clubs appear throughout the world as part of the adult entertainment industry. Beyond the economics of the adult entertainment robot
industry that promises disease-free, problem-free relationships, there is the
issue of humans becoming intimate with machines, namely, robo-love/lust that
reinforces proclivities toward necroculture. https://www.bustle.com/p/is-this-the-future-of-sex-robots-49207

Civil Rights and Police-State-Militarism with AI Robots

There is nothing inevitable about the polarizing impact of AI as some
have argued any more than there was anything inherently polarizing for society
with the invention of the steam engine or electricity, except in so far as
technology is a part of a class-based economy bound to disadvantage the lower
classes in the race for capital accumulation. The issue is how the new science
technology will operate under the capitalist system as an instrument of capital
accumulation and how politicians, from the populist right wing that may oppose
AI to the progressive left that may favor it under a certain regulatory regime
intended to benefit the broader population. https://rationalaltruist.com/2014/05/14/machine-intelligence-and-capital-accumulation/

Idealists and propagandists argue that there is no reason for the new
science and technology to be the servant of big capital rather than of humanity.
Under the existing political economy, there is little doubt that socioeconomic
problems, which many scholars fear about the implications of the AI industry,
will come true. Even worse, given the current trend increasingly toward an
authoritarian system parading under a thin cloak of consumerist democracy, it is
highly unlikely that governments will use AI for the progress of all human
beings in education, the handicapped who are unable to afford special care, etc.

Government already plays a major role not just in tax breaks and subsidies
to AI research and development. In the future, government regulation and the ability of intelligence
agencies to use AI for surveillance as they currently use the web and cell
phones will be major issues. “Machine ethics” will include the domain of civil rights and
surveillance for those coming into contact with AI robots. Some social scientists are
concerned that AI robots could be subject to abuse for the more thorough
exploitation of citizens and consumers. This is reflected in books and science fiction movies reflecting human concern for machine rather than fellow humans. Liability for malfunctioning robots whether
as security guards at the airport, or as lovers in the bedroom will be another
major policy and legal issue that is currently unknown. https://www.21centurystate.com/articles/artificial-intelligence-to-play-bigger-role-in-policing/

In many respects, humans are already subordinated to machines in many
facets of life. AI will only be an add-on. If the cell phone, computer,
smart TV, even the headset are devices that permit government and corporations
to monitor people, will civil liberties become non-existent in the future? How
would the AI technology enhance the existing surveillance society already here
for Americans whose government and corporations have their citizens under watch?What would AI technology entail for the social contract when robots would have to be an integral part of that contract?

While some believe that robots will need protection under the law as pets
or even humans, in the last analysis the robot is no different than the vacuum
cleaner intended for a purpose, even if it is highly intelligent one and looks like a human fashion model. Given that the values of society are such
that objects are held in higher regard than human beings, it would make sense
that robots are accorded special legal treatment that not even minorities enjoys
in the hands of the criminal justice system. Some advocates of AI contend that
all people, but especially women, ethnic and religious minorities would be
better protected by androids in the courts and criminal justice system because robots would not have human prejudices. The flip side of this is that human
dignity would suffer across the board for all people subjected to AI robot surveillance
and supervision. Humans could wind up becoming servants of robots in the
distant future; a scenario some scietists fear. In my view, it will not be because of a robot revolution and takeover but rather the dependence of humans on robots.

The
police-state militarism regime is already here concealing itself behind the
very thin veil of bourgeois democracy that lacks accountability to anyone other
than the capitalist class whose representatives formulate policy. The Pentagon
estimates that in another 20 years the US armed forces will be composed of both
humans and hi-tech machines that will be more lethal than
anything we have seen in the past. Of course, the drone warfare that became
popular with the Pentagon and CIA under President Barak Obama set the
groundwork for machines fighting humans, destroying many innocent civilians in
the process when hitting military targets in Muslim countries. http://www.governing.com/columns/tech-talk/gov-artificial-intelligence-government-technology.html

The same companies working on “robo-soldiers” are also working on “robo-cop” technology. Police
departments already have serious problems with their militarization approach to
law enforcement, pursuing minorities with greater vigor in overzealous
pursuits. Robo-cops could be an improvement or they could make police
departments even more militaristic than they are already. Joergen Pedersen, the
CEO of RE2 robotics and the
chairman of the National Defense Industrial Association’s robotics division
argued that: “If these robots are used in manners for which they were unintended, we
would expect that the officers who are there to keep citizens and themselves
safe would use good judgment where the application of lethal force is a last
resort.”http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2016/07/military-robotics-makers-see-future-armed-police-robots/129769/

Pedersen’s comment hardly
inspires public confidence because it states that human officers will
be making the decision on robo-cop conduct thus transferring human prejudices
to the machine. Would the criminal justice system be any less racist than it is today in America because of robots if white racists are programming the robots? Considering that the robo-cops presence will make the officer
feel invincible over citizens to a much greater degree than the real officers
feel today, can the human power-hungry officer be trusted with a robo-cop by
his side to keep order in a public demonstration against government policy
about any number of issues? It is estimated that within the next two decades US
police departments will be using robo-cops throughout major US cities. The combination
of robo-cops and robo-soldiers could make society far more authoritarian than
we have seen since the era of the Third Reich, prompting mass demonstrations
against repression and polarizing society even more than it is in our time.

The universal presence of robot would mean the absence of
self-determination and even the absence of humans collectively determining
their own destiny.If the robot will be
more useful and smarter than any human with the ability to make countless
calculations and decisions based on algorithms, then why not have robots and
computers run society as they see fit so that people no longer blame social,
business, religious, academic and political leaders? There is a very real
danger that governments will program AI to manipulate public opinion even more
than it is today where empirical truth is reduced to a relativist alternate
reality amid a barrage of propaganda. Besides government manipulating public
opinion to convince people that behind the thin veneer of democracy operates
capitalist authoritarianism, why would corporations not be using AI to
manipulate consumers and increase profits? The AI industry is itself a reflection of where capitalism is headed.

Scientific and Religious Opposition
to AI

AI Skeptics claim that robots and computers cannot be
programmed to account for relativism in domain of morality, ideology and culture,
thus failing to best serve humanity because of the inability to account for
nuances in human nature, human experiences and the unique conditions that may
deviate from the pre-programmed mold. If indeed one of the great traits in
human character is the capacity to doubt, to consider options, to change one’s
mind, to dream and aspire, to feel torn because of dilemmas owing to moral and
emotional considerations, the question becomes whether AI machines can be
programmed accordingly and if so what would this mean for humans.

Two public opinion polls (2007 and 2016) indicate that the majority of
Americans have no fear of AI robotics in the manner that motion pictures
and science fiction books depict them. Understandably, respondents were more worried about their fellow
humans that intentionally cause harm rather than programmed robots. Because
living standards have been declining in the age of the internet whose proponents had been promising techno-paradise on earth for all people, many do
not see how things could become worse with thinking machines. In a public
opinion poll conducted in 2016, 53% of the respondents replied that it is
important to proceed with AI research and development, while 15% agree with
some scientists warning that AI is potentially dangerous. Another 20% see no
need for AI, presumably because human beings are sufficient to carry out tasks
of these robots. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-vanity-fair-poll-artificial-intelligence/

To some degree, public opinion polls on AI actually reflect the concerns
of scientists and scholars, including theologians and religious leaders. Most
scientists are well aware of both the potential benefits and possible risks
involved in the AI industry as it becomes a major segment of the economy. World
renowned physicist Stephen Hawking has argued that AI has the potential of
becoming the most worthy contribution to humanity but also the instrument of
its destruction. Thousands of scholars have expressed serious reservations
about AI but for different reasons, some for political, others for ethical,
others for man’s inability to control his own inventions from taking over and
turning against humanity. http://www.newsweek.com/ai-asilomar-principles-artificial-intelligence-elon-musk-550525

Some scientists estimate
that by the end of this century AI robots will have superhuman intellectual
capabilities. One key question is whether AI will make humans more intelligent
or intellectually and creatively lazy because the machine will think and work for
them. Some scholars believe that computer technology is actually making humans
less intelligent, while others insist the computer will never be as smart as
their human programmers and it is but a tool for human development. Advocates of
AI argue that most likely humans will evolve along with robots, although it may
take genetic modification for humans, those whose parents can afford it, to
keep up with the robot. http://nautil.us/issue/28/2050/dont-worry-smart-machines-will-take-us-with-them

There is evidence to
indicate that the average middle class child in the Western World is more intelligent in 2017 than a child growing up in the 1950s. At the same time,
however, the average child of the early 1950s used her/his brain to solve
problems, whereas today’s child resorts to the computer for everything from
problem-solving and analysis to information and memory. The machine facilitates
and speeds up research and communication, but it also makes the user
intellectually lazy. Even worse, the computer can make the user cynical often
unable to distinguish between what is useful and edifying and that which is
useless or potentially destructive.

Although the cell phone and
computer make it much easier to communicate and gather information, the web
cannot think or make judgment for the individual about what is true and what has
scientific, scholarly and ethical validity. This is where the vast “garbage” of the web
enters into the picture, overloaded with all sorts of completely useless,
untruthful, unscientific, and often harmful material that many people embrace
as empirical fact; a reflection of a value judgment on the part of the web user.
The ability to determine what is truly for the edification of humankind and
what is useless or even harmful remains a human endeavor and one that the
computer or AI robot cannot carry out in the absence of a program. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mr-personality/201305/is-technology-making-us-stupid-and-smarter

The debate about AI technology raises old questions about human nature.
Viewed from the perspective of a neuroscientist, the debate about the mind goes
to the heart of understanding consciousness (aware of one’s existence and surroundings)
and whether that particular feature can be replicated in a robot. While some
scientists and of course advocates of AI believe it is possible to create
robots that are self-aware, others are skeptical. If one takes the view of the
brain as another mechanical device and consciousness limited to the definition
of memories, thought processes, then it is easier to see how AI proponents
would conclude robots will be no different than humans.

If we accept the brain as a machine-like device, then we are not far
apart from accepting AI in every aspect of human society, including as intimate
partners. Politicians of the future could be consulting robots on how to make a
policy decisions. Generals about to launch a military strike, or media editors
deciding what news stories the public needs to see/hear and how to deliver such
information could be carried out with the assistance of computers and robots. Because
all of this in a primitive form takes place right now, we are already in the
pre-AI phase of a robo-society where the hegemonic culture is conditioning
robo-citizens into conformity.

Many theologians and
philosophers believe that AI will simply make humans more like robots depriving
them of their soul; a controversial position for those who doubt
there is such a thing as a “soul”. One could argue that 17th century
rationalist philosophers Rene Descartes, Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Wilhelm
Leibniz had a much more mechanical view of humans than philosophers before the
Scientific Revolution when religion dominated everyone’s worldview. If the
living body is an “automaton” and God the computer programmer, then why is AI
so vastly different with humans playing the role of God as the Grand Programmer?

Critics, especially
theologians, argue that humans are more than merely mechanical devices like a
robot because they have a conscious, a soul for those who believe in its
existence as either separate from or an integral part of the brain. AI technology
may pose a very serious threat to religion; more so than Charles Darwin’s work
on evolution that remains unacceptable even today for many yielding to
religious dogma. Despite religious reservations about the new technology,
houses of worship are among the first to use it to reach the faithful through
computers, advertise and project their services online. If “tele-worship” is
already here and now, how far behind would the houses of worship be when it
comes to using AI robots in all sorts of ways, insisting they are instruments
of God serving mankind’s path to salvation! Just as opportunism drives
corporations to pursue research and development and government to want “robo-soldiers”
and “robo-cops”, all other domains in society, including religion will adapt to
the new AI technology, setting aside their dogmatic opposition. After all, what
could be greater than using a robot as a model of an obedient servant to God in
the name of redemption which humans ought to emulate? Isn’t blind robotic
obedience what religion always expects of its faithful?

Conclusions

Regardless of what many critics warn about the risks once AI becomes
commercially viable, the potential for immense profits and power are the sole
motivating factors. Naturally, there will be a high-end market, and medium to
low-end for the mass consumer looking to emulate the experience of the elites
by renting these machines. Biosynthetic engineering fits into a similar elitist
mold, despite the promise of providing miracles in human health and wellness
for the sake of a ‘wellness society’.

Of course, the issue of scientific and technological progress goes
beyond rich people having a robot as servant or an intimate partner (SEX-BOT),
or deciding that their offspring must have blue eyes, blonde hair, and an
athletic built. Nor is the issue about how cheaply robots in fast food
restaurants can serve French fries to customers; how fast they can go in a
self-driving car; or how doctors could be providing the option to those who can
afford it of freeing their children from crippling hereditary diseases. AI
raises a public policy debate with many dimensions for the entire social
structure impacted by new science and technology in a very uneven manner. Because
moral reasoning programmed into an AI device will have the inherent limitations
of its programmer (s), this raises questions about social justice as a goal for
society where the elites will use AI as instruments of exploitation.

AI also raises the issue of human evolution of the elites that will set
themselves apart from the rest of humanity existing outside the world of AI;
elites that will be able to afford the dream of super-race status; of
techno-flawlessness as a way of life emulating their robot partners that would
have either replaced or supplemented their human partners. This is not an issue
of defining human beings so narrowly that they only fit the mold of pre-civilization
hunter-gatherers, or even pre-industrial era peasant existing in
self-sufficiency and immersed in religion and superstition.

In a globalized economy and culture where the means of communication are
instantly bringing people closer together than at any time in history AI will
have profound ramifications working as much in favor as against the elites by
groups using AI to change the status quo. Revolutionary movements, resistance,
protest and dissidence will change because of AI. The dialectic will continue
because AI cuts both ways, no matter what the corporate world and bourgeois
politicians wish for their robots as their exclusive servants against society.

Creativity’s boundaries are as endless as the universe. While human
creativity has resulted in the edification of mankind, creativity also extends
to the domain of weapons of mass destruction for which there can be no possible
defense for anyone with a modicum of social conscience; something that nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer discovered after realizing the atomic bomb's destructive potential to humanity. AI can be a useful tool
that enhances the human experience but with it will come the destructive
aspects used for by governments for wars and police-state methods. Realistically,
no matter what ethicists, politicians, theologians and scientists argue, the
voice that matters mostly in the AI industry is that of capitalists.

Among others, American billionaire Mark Cuban speculates that the
world’s first trillionaires will be those with the ability to master all
aspects of artificial intelligence and derivative industries. No doubt, such an
appetizing dream has many companies investing in artificial intelligence
research and development. The recognition that the new industry of the future
will be operating under existing rules of capitalism is a tacit acknowledgement
that AI will not solve any of the outstanding social, economic and political
problems. http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2016/09/berg.htm

Just as advancements in science and technology operating under the capitalist
system did not result in social justice, the AI industry is merely a
continuation of scientific, technological, industrial development and hardly a
panacea for society’s larger economic, social and political problems. Their hypocritical
claims to the contrary aside, corporations will use AI to amass profits not to
enhance the lives of human beings. This means exploiting everyone as a
consumer, from small children to the elderly and the physically and mentally
ill. Human beings will gravitate toward AI because they have a predisposition
to acquire godlike qualities, a quest to experience even vicariously what it is
like to remain forever young, immortal and as close to perfect as possible. AI will
afford the opportunity to the wealthier class to enjoy the privilege of the
godlike satisfaction.

"A
gripping, passion-filled, and suspenseful tale of love, betrayal,
political and religious intrigue, this novel entices the reader’s
senses and intellect beyond conventions. Slaves to Gods and Demons
takes the reader through a roller coaster enthralling journey of
personal trials and triumphs of a family emerging vanquished and
destitute after World War II.

Narrated by a young boy, Morfeos, modeled after the Greco-Roman pagan
deity of sleep and dreams, the book reveals the soul of a people trying
to ascertain and assert their identity while rebuilding their lives and
recapturing the glory of a lost civilization.

Seeking liberation from restraints of time, social conventions, and
binding traditions, the deity of dreams provides the conformist and the
free-spirited characters in the novel with venues for redemption that
are mere paths toward illusions. Exploring the complexities of human
relationships shaped by priest and politician alike, the novel rests on
the central theme that life is invariably a series of illusions, some
of which are euphoric, most horrifying, all an integral part of daily
existence.

Striving for purpose amid life’s absurdities after the destruction of
western civilization in two global wars, the characters in Slaves to
Gods and Demons struggle between holding on to the glory and grandeur of
a pagan legacy and the Christian present shaped by contemporary
secular events in Western Civilization."